The Dickinson press., 1887-05-21
Bad Lands Of the Little Missouri.
Especial Correspondence to rnEs-.l

The late Prof. William Denton pic.
tured the Bad Lands of the Little
Missouri, as follows: ''From Green
river to the Bad Lands there is IL
beautiful prairie. wave after wave for
fifty miles. and we naturally expect
this to continue Indefinitely on. Not
so. however; we walk near the SUM
nit of Il prairie wave and 10! almost
in an instant we are OH the edge of an
immense valley, hundreds of square
miles Of which are visible to us, lying
at Il depth of from 800 to 500 feet.
But such Il valley, containing myriads
of mounds. Duties. pyramids. pinna-
clcs. forts and turrets! Here are an
yons. ravines, gullies, and perpendic-
ular p%recipices: pyramids with brown
and blue bases, and vermillion tops;
towers with unscalable walls. that de-
fly the earth ransacking biologists;
mounds of all sizes. from ;n ant hill
W ~ lSSIVSlNplS llloAilllllls olllSlN
mounds, twin mounds. triple mounds,
and multiple mounds; mounds with
yellow bases, white girdles and blood
red caps; green mounds. drab mounds,
white, blue. red and notified mounds;
%truncated mounds with mounds on
them; mounds beyond mounds. like
wave Oh the ocean, till they are lost
in the distance; but intersperced with
all these wonders are slopes, many
acres in extent, as green us All emer-
aid. and lovely spots covered with the
fragrant ground-juniper, fit carpet fol-
Il queen" The frontier theory, rs to
the origin of this strange condition
is that the whole valley has dropped
down owing to some grand CONFUSION
of nature. The red appearance OF
multitudes of the mounds and the
great cindery and lava-like masses,
that lie around, suggested to Gen. Sui.
ly this remark: "Why. this is Hell
with the fires out with only the ashes
and cinders left When George
Stark of n. Y. City visited these
Lands seven years ago he exclaimed:
"Pyramid Park" Sully "a hunting
for Indians and Mr.. Stark as vice
president of the Northern Pacific rail,
road was looking for land. Denton's
theory is that the Little Missouri
/ once run over a broad sandstone bed
a thousand feet above its present
channel, into the Big Missouri. When
the latter by q fall cut its way back,
| past the mouth of the Little Missouri.
| then the Little Missouri leaped from
| its sandstone platform into the chan
mel cut by the Missouri, and com
menced to cut its way back by Il fall
through the underlying beds of what
are now the Bad Lands. The beds
under the sandstone were composed
of sand and clay and through them
the river cut with remarkable rapid
ty, makingla deep canyon. The streams
flowing into the Little Missouri com
menced doing OH a smaller scale what
it had done on Il larger scale: the rills
then made ravlnes by the same pro
cess: every shower made smaller ra
| vines and thus the country was cut
into a perfect network of canyons, ia
vines. gulches, and the work went OF
until the ravines and gulches cut back
to Il point of meeting, leaving buttes,
pyramids and mounds as the result,
This process is still going on and the
Bad Lands are encroaching with
every shower upon the prairie. The
burnt appearance of the country is
accounted for by the spontaneous fir
ing of coal beds. there are as many as
ten in aprecipice 500 feet high. These
coal fires burned the clay above them
into brick i'll some instances and
where the heat was greatest. into SEQ.
rio like bodies of semi-jasper. These
fires are burning at present and the